Spotting A Fake

Last winter a professor from the school I attend gave a lecture in my contemporary art class. His subject matter was first on his experiences in art school, then he told us that he was a physicis professor. His art endeavors were circulated around movements and motion. He then began to describe how he created fractal patterns through the use of a penjulem and wind and paint.

The professor is Richard Taylor from the University of Oregon. The second half of his lecture was centered around the techniques used to authenticate a Jackson Pollock painting. Since Pollock paintings fetch upwards of tens of millions of dollars, the science behind spotting a fake is quite involved.

The issue of whether some paintings are actual Pollock's spouts from the fact that many of Pollock's works are unsigned and his style can be easliy recreated. Or so most peopole think. In the 1999 Nature article, "Fractal Analysis of Pollock's Drip Paintings," the process of analyzing a Pollock painting is shown. The group of scientists, which include Taylor (i am leaving them out due to the fact that i have not attended one of their lectures) scan the alleged Pollock paintings into their computer program which then creates certain scales according to grids and levels of overlap in his drip style. According to the digital process of using computer code to verify the fractal geometry of the paintings lets the scientists see if the alleged painting matches up to like patterns of known Pollock's.

This whole process is extremely intersting, yet I still am wavering if this is a legitimate source of information. Acoording to Taylor in his lecture, no one else on the planet has been able to reproduce a drip painting that has the same fractal ramifications as Pollock did. This is an amazing statement, and one almost has to belive it based on the fact that the statement is backed by computer computations. I, like countless other people, I am sure, would love it if Pollock was still alive and could respond to this state of the art procedure in verifying the authenticity lof his work. Being one who creates pieces of art at a university level, I am almost positive that his response to the question of, "Mr. Pollock, were you conscious of fractal patterns in your drip paintings of the late 1940's and early 1950's?" His response is obviously not known, however I would not be surprised if he mentioned that all he tried to do was to create a certain feeling inside himself as he was creating.

You could counter my statement about feeling good, with research that Taylor has constructed of the effects of fractal patterns in nature, such as tree branches and repetitive waves having a euphoric effect on humans. However the topic of your thoughts should concern the legitimacy of computer based codes telling the world if certain paintgs were created by someone or not. Becuase every artist copies someone else's style at one point or another, and every famous artist changed their artistic style over the years.

Spotting A Fake

Last winter a professor from the school I attend gave a lecture in my contemporary art class. His subject matter was first on his experiences in art school, then he told us that he was a physicis professor. His art endeavors were circulated around movements and motion. He then began to describe how he created fractal patterns through the use of a penjulem and wind and paint.

The professor is Richard Taylor from the University of Oregon. The second half of his lecture was centered around the techniques used to authenticate a Jackson Pollock painting. Since Pollock paintings fetch upwards of tens of millions of dollars, the science behind spotting a fake is quite involved.

The issue of whether some paintings are actual Pollock's spouts from the fact that many of Pollock's works are unsigned and his style can be easliy recreated. Or so most peopole think. In the 1999 Nature article, "Fractal Analysis of Pollock's Drip Paintings," the process of analyzing a Pollock painting is shown. The group of scientists, which include Taylor (i am leaving them out due to the fact that i have not attended one of their lectures) scan the alleged Pollock paintings into their computer program which then creates certain scales according to grids and levels of overlap in his drip style. According to the digital process of using computer code to verify the fractal geometry of the paintings lets the scientists see if the alleged painting matches up to like patterns of known Pollock's.

This whole process is extremely intersting, yet I still am wavering if this is a legitimate source of information. Acoording to Taylor in his lecture, no one else on the planet has been able to reproduce a drip painting that has the same fractal ramifications as Pollock did. This is an amazing statement, and one almost has to belive it based on the fact that the statement is backed by computer computations. I, like countless other people, I am sure, would love it if Pollock was still alive and could respond to this state of the art procedure in verifying the authenticity lof his work. Being one who creates pieces of art at a university level, I am almost positive that his response to the question of, "Mr. Pollock, were you conscious of fractal patterns in your drip paintings of the late 1940's and early 1950's?" His response is obviously not known, however I would not be surprised if he mentioned that all he tried to do was to create a certain feeling inside himself as he was creating.

You could counter my statement about feeling good, with research that Taylor has constructed of the effects of fractal patterns in nature, such as tree branches and repetitive waves having a euphoric effect on humans. However the topic of your thoughts should concern the legitimacy of computer based codes telling the world if certain paintgs were created by someone or not. Becuase every artist copies someone else's style at one point or another, and every famous artist changed their artistic style over the years.

All Artist's Need Inspiration, Right?

I am currently enrolled in an intermediate/advanced drawing class at the moment. One of the exercises we go through is to look at art books of past and current artists. It is nice to relax and learn through looking at pictures, something I am good at being a visual person. However at what point does the style and ideas of the works of art creep into my subconscious, and dictate how I create?

The magazine, Communication Arts currently has a story in their April edition, concerning the artwork of Jason Greenberg. He is an illustrator who creates cultural scenes using what I believe to be Illustrator. In the article he says that he draws his inspiration from African masks, Japanese woodblocks, and guadalajaran textiles. His pictures have a very societal feel with all of them containing multiple figures, engaging in some form of public communication.

The work displayed in the magazine, by Greenberg is closely associated with the cultural influences of masks, woodcuts, and textiles; created in the form of vector art. This is where using old subject matter and new technology work. For a little while. Greenberg will need to eventually find his own subject matter, but because he is using a new medium, the old style almost becomes his own.

My slight pessimism towards Greenberg's style most likely stems from my own issues with finding inspiration in past work. Now, if I can only find examples of oil painters painting in the style of vector art, oh yeah that is everywhere right now.

Originality and creativity are key elements to most endeavors, including of course; design. I have only recently been informed on the work of Joshua Davis, and it would appear that he uses the two qualities mentioned above. This short excerpt is from the march 2006, issue of Wired magazine.

"Davis creates what he calls generative composition machines: applications written with his collaborator Branden Hall, using open source code and Flash to automate his sketches. He plugs in multiple options-say, five different drawings of a tree trunk, 10 types of leaves, seven branches, 15 critters that can live in the foliage, and 12 background colors. then his code morphs the image from pastoral scenescape into any number of moving visuals."

The title of the article, written by Scott Kirsner is "The Barely controlled Chaos of Joshua Davis." The finished product does sound chaotic. However with computer programming and coding capabilities in todays day and age, Davis simply used the technology at hand to create prints of his coded pictures. The chaotic part would have to be that he was the one to come up with the idea to use this technology to create one of a kind illustrations, which I presume change continuously until he stops the program in order to print a frame of his creation. Having seen several of Davis' prints and his website, www.JoshuaDavis.com, Davis is using the idea of abstract art in his process. This however could be seen in two ways. He could be creating abstract forms in a chaotic manner, by letting the computer alter his files or he could be using the controlled form of computer computations in a way which produces abstract/chaotic work. Either way he is challenging the normal constraints of digital art and hand made art.

The digital effect of rotoscoping has come to my attention, in the form of film animation. The march issue of Wired magazine has a story around the topic and the movie, A Scanner Darkly. Aparently the title of the movie existed before in the form of a book written in the seventies. This should mesh even better with my view on creativity. The book was written by somebody, his name was mentioned in the story. However I can only remeber the name of the director, Richard Linkliter, the director who made Waking Life in 2000.

I also caught wind that the rotoscoping technique was first used by the creator of pop-eye and betty boop cartoons, Max Fleischer. It was in 1914 when he first created the technique of filming live action shots of people moving, and then animating over the movements. This is not mentioned, but Walt Disney is. My point being that not only should credit be deserved to Fleischer; abstracting ordinary movement for animated purpses is a bit like copying or tracing, which happens to be exactly what it started out as.

To anyone who has seen the film, Waking Life, rotoscoping looks quite different now then it did for Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and Fleischer's "Out of the Inkwell." I cannot say that I am a fan of the idea, however what else can be done in order to precisely mimmic the movements generated by physical objects. The whole theme of the aesthetic in Waking Life was that all of the cahracters took on their own movements and lived in a very much dream state, due to the rotoscoping program, Rotoshop. The article in Wired states that very few people know how to use the new software, though I now have heard of several different programs have the capabilities to perform this task.

Getting back to the aesthetic of rotoscoping and tracing over actual film footage. If I do not like it, would I have also despised french impressionist paintings of the 1860's before such artists' as Monet, Renoir, and Pissaro became immortalized as master painters? I believe that new forms of technology need to move in different directions, away from the mainstream. And of course how long until rotoscoping becomes the mainstream.

My recent endeavors in creating art and conceptualizing my ideas have been in the form of digital art. Using such adobe products as photoshop and illustrator and experimenting with film editing programs. As it stands, I only have about ten months experiencing in any form of digital media (where I am the creator). I can absolutely say that it is a wonderful technology for expressive people. However, with computer programs, one can only express themselves after reading the manual or going to school. It is quite hard to create an expressive piece of art with the computer in an expressive manner. There is no splashing of paint or rigorous drawing motions until your shoulders hurt. To be honest there would seem to be only about three benefits to using the computer for art. They would be: reproduction, global scale (which fits into reproduction), and well, the use of the mouse and keyboard and keyboard shortcuts forces you to use both of your hands.
I yearn to be a bilingual creator, so for the moment I will be happy with the first steps of becoming ambidextrous. And perhaps once I can use both of my hands to create, I will be able to use both sides of my brain, thus making the top side of my tongue for english, and the bottom side for other languages. And do not forget the sides of the tongue.
Due to my new found affection of having an open mind, digitally created art is great and is quite beneficial. That is why one has to respect the task that Adam Parrish King undertook in creating his film, The Wrath of Cobble Hill. I personally have not viewed the film, however reading the article in Animation Magazine, entitled "Brooklyn Blues," makes me think. King created a film using film and clay characters and not the programs of maya or other cutting edge digital technology. The article stated that it took King five years to complete the film. And he hand created all the sets and characters out of plasticine, steel armatures, and clay.
Adam King apparently did not use the aid of digital media, and yet I feel that because the majority of animated films use computers these days, that his piece fits into the category of digitallly created art. I apologize for that generalization, but will use the respect I have for hand building in my qualms with digital media. To one day embrace the new techniques with open arms is the goal.